Long Time Coming
by also known as LuLu
Summary: Sometimes it takes a blow of tragedy to patch up the damages between friends.


Disclaimer: You know the drill, so I'm not bothering to repeat it.  
  
Author's Note: I don't know who reads my profile page, but there's a note on it that says I'm not going to update this week. That is the case, yes, but this was written late last night for personal reasons, so I'm posting it anyway. Well, it started out as personal reasons, and probably still is, but the exact sight of the story was lost at a place I cannot pinpoint. I don't know why everything I write turns out to be fanfiction; sometimes it just seems easier that way. Reviews are appreciated, as always.  
  
Long Time Coming  
  
September, Jack considered that night, was colder than he remembered it. The moon was larger than he remembered, too, and the night blacker than even printer's ink. Looking back on it, he wonders if perhaps it had been foreshadowing for the moment when he was approached by Racetrack a block from the Lodging House, and the autumn wind blowing fiercely behind the gambling boy.  
  
"Cowboy, did you hear?" asked Racetrack as greeting.  
  
"Hear what?" Jack replied, unaware.  
  
"You haven't?" But Racetrack did not sound surprised. Jack said nothing. "Conlon's old lady died last night."  
  
Jack paused, letting the words sink in through the silence that existed between them. "Jesus," he breathed.  
  
"Yeah." Racetrack indicated agreement with his eyes. "But the guy from Brooklyn I heard it from said it was painless."  
  
"That's good, at least." And then the obligatory question. "How's Spot doing?"  
  
"Fine enough. The boys are making time for him, to make sure he's okay, and that's helping him deal."  
  
Jack nodded. "Is there going to be a funeral?"  
  
"Sunday, they're saying."  
  
"I thought you weren't supposed to bury the dead on Sundays."  
  
"Damned if I know," Racetrack shrugged. He glanced over his shoulder nervously, in the direction of the lodging house. "Listen, Jack, I've got to get back. Kloppman told me that if I missed curfew one more time, he'd kick me out for a month."  
  
Was it really that close to midnight? Jack wondered. But before he could ask that or any other details about Mrs. Conlon, Racetrack was out of sight. This was not the kind of news he needed dropped into his lap during such a late night.  
  
How long had it been since he'd last seen Spot? It had been a month, at least. The last time he could recall was when Spot had come to Manhattan to tie up loose ends, with alliances, contracts, or whatever the hell hehad called it, Jack didn't remember. Either way, he'd known that Spot hadn't come up with the idea himself. Standing over sloppy draft upon sloppy draft spread across the tables of Tibby's, they had bickered over it, Spot wanting more power than Jack thought he deserved, both wanting things the other would not allow. Spot had left vexed, and as far as Jack had known, that had been the end of it.  
  
Jack had never even known Spot's mother, not even her name, not even that she had existed in the first place. So why was there this feeling inside him? Twisting, gnawing pain inside his heart, something he had not felt for many years. He had blocked those feelings out, believing he did not need them as much as they supposed they needed him. Feelings were lies. But at the same time, feelings were truth he refused to admit, the truth that he could feel, that he did feel, no matter how much he wished he did not. And to be frank, Jack did not like that. He did not want to know the truth. He did not want to know the name of Spot's mother, because it reminded him of the name of his own mother. He did not want to know that Spot's mother had died, because it reminded him that his mother had died as well. He did not want to understand, to remember those feelings as sharply as Spot felt them now. But there they were, just the same.  
  
Jack shivered in the cold September wind, letting the current of air distract him into a state of numbness. At half past midnight, he headed into the Lodging House, nodding his silent apology to Kloppman. In the bunkroom, he did not dress for bed. Instead, he headed for Mush's bunk, where he knew the boy kept a copy of the previous day's edition underneath the bottom bunk. Jack reached underneath, and pulled it out.  
  
Mush, meanwhile, awoke to the rustling of day-old newspapers beneath him  
  
"Christ…" he mumbled, still half-possessed by sleep, as he rolled over onto his side. "Who the hell's making that noise?"  
  
"It's just me, Mush," Jack mumbled as he continued to page through the New York World. "Go back to sleep."  
  
"Cowboy, what are you doing up still?"  
  
"I'm looking for an obit."  
  
"In the dark?"  
  
"Yeah, in the dark. My eyes are still good."  
  
"Can't you do it tomorrow, Jack?"  
  
"No, Mush, I can't."  
  
"Why not? The paper will still be there."  
  
"I just found out Spot's mom died, okay?" he snapped with an appropriate accompanying hiss.  
  
"Oh God," Mush breathed, sitting up. "Jesus H. Christ, Jack, I'm sorry. Go ahead and look all you want."  
  
"No, it's fine." Jack replaced the paper under the bottom bunk. "I'll look tomorrow. You're right, the paper will still be there."  
  
He got up and slipped towards his bed, ignoring any reaction from Mush and wiping away the two clear, wet tears he had been trying to hold in as he did so. Since when had he become a softie? It didn't matter, he supposed. Boys were allowed to shed tears every once in a while -- even if they hadn't cried for their own mothers in the time before.  
  
Jack crawled into his bunk while still in his clothing. He did not sleep much that night, haunted by long, vacant dreams of symbolic women holding swaddled children he did not recognize. He did not even consider which could have been him.  
  
The morning was bright, with chirping birds and a blinding sun. Looking back on it, Jack considers foreshadowing to be a fluke. Kloppman let him sleep late that day, but fate still had its way, interrupting his slumber mid-morning with an unexpected visitor.  
  
"Jack, wake up," Kloppman said, swatting at him. "He walked all night to get here, so don't keep him waiting."  
  
Jack Kelly approached Spot Conlon just outside the front door of the Lodging House while still in the clothes he had worn the day before. Spot was dressed in the same rumpled manner. They looked at each other at first, gazes stony and stoic, before becoming softer and sympathetic a few moments later. They knew why the other was there.  
  
"You know, Jacky-boy," Spot said to him, softly, releasing the first words spoken between them in many weeks, "no matter how old you are, you're still an orphan when your mother dies."  
  
Jack nodded and squeezed his friend's shoulder gently.  
  
"I know, Spot…I know."  
  
(End.)  
  



End file.
